'Boston Strangler' Trailer: Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon Investigate a '60s Serial Killer

How many women have to die before this is considered history?

Hulu's haunting 'Boston Strangler' trailer raises the question of the cost of living. Two-time Oscar nominee Kiera Knightley and Emmy nominee Carrie Coon play two real-life reporters who piece together a string of Boston-area deaths as being linked to a serial killer.

Between 1962 and 1964, more than a dozen single women between the ages of 19 and 85 were killed in the greater Boston area. The work of two pioneering journalists uncovered the story of the famous Boston Strangler.

According to the official synopsis, af. After the bodies of three elderly women are discovered, Loretta McLaughlin (Knightley), a reporter for the Record-American newspaper, is the first reporter to publish a story connecting the crimes. As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta tries to continue her investigation alongside her colleague and confidante Jean Cole (Coon), but the duo find themselves blocked by the rampant sexism of the time. Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Cole bravely pursue the story at the risk of their lives, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

Alessandro Nivola, David Dastmalchian, Morgan Spector, Bill Camp and Chris Cooper also star.

Writer-director Matt Ruskin told IndieWire that the true story of the discovery of the Boston Strangler is not well known, with even the 1968 Tony Curtis film being too police-centric with "everything is going as planned" to apprehend the killer.< /p>

"Growing up in Boston, I've heard of the Boston Strangler all my life. But it wasn't until a few years ago, when I started reading about it, that I realized that I knew nothing about the real case," Ruskin said. "I uncovered this incredibly complex murder mystery with all of these unexpected twists and turns that were as much about the city and the time as they were about the identity of this serial killer.”

Ruskin continued, "It's really different from the narrative of the 1968 movie starring Tony Curtis, which is a lot like the cops who take their man and everything goes according to plan. So to tell this story from the point of view of a detective didn't really work for me. And then I heard an interview with this reporter named Loretta McLaughlin. She was one of the first people to connect the murders. She really broke the story and gave her name to the Boston Strangler during his reporting. I love journalism stories. I respect and admire good journalism. Some of my favorite movies are journalism movies, so I thought this might be a really compelling way to revisit the story of the Boston Strangler."

Ruskin had an unexpected personal connection to reporter Cole, played by Coon in the film.

“I was trying to do all the research I could on Loretta and the journalists she worked with, named Jean Cole. But there was very little information about them available online,” the director of “ Crown Heights." "I read Jean Cole's obituary and saw that she had two daughters. I actually looked them up on Facebook, and one of them had a Facebook profile, and she had a picture. And in the photo, she had her arm around an old friend of mine. So I called [my friend] and said, "How do you know this woman?" and she said it was her mother. She explained that Jean Cole was her grandmother and someone she revered growing up. So I told her about my interest in history, and she introduced me to both families, and they really welcomed me with open arms and gave me access to everything. So at that moment, I felt like I had to tell their story. »

Ruskin spent more than a year researching the Boston Strangler and reporters Cole and McLaughlin before writing the screenplay. He turned to movies like "Good Night and Good Luck," "Zodiac," and "All the President's Men," especially how to photograph the newsroom, for inspiration.

Producer Ridley Scott has attached himself to the project, while Scott Free Productions producer Kevin Walsh has also teamed up with Ruskin to mentor the filmmaker through the production process.

Actresses Knightley and Coon were the dream cast for Ruskin's respective roles, with the director telling IndieWire that Knightley "really possessed the qualities that I thought were so important in trying to tell Loretta's story".< /p>

"In much of his work, you see both this strength and this ability to be vulnerable and to convey a...